


Letters to Ellie

by Lrabbithole



Category: The Half of It (2020)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:34:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23988202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lrabbithole/pseuds/Lrabbithole
Summary: Aster can’t help but keep writing to Ellie. Even when she doesn’t know what to say.
Relationships: Ellie Chu/Aster Flores
Comments: 20
Kudos: 160





	1. Real

Dear Ellie,

It’s nice to write to you again, I hope you don’t mind that I do. Writing helps me clear my thoughts, helps me explore things I had never dared to before. I guess I could just have a diary, but it wouldn’t be the same. Talking to you was how I started to allow myself to dream beyond the limits of Squahamish, even if back then, I now realize, you didn’t dare to dream yourself.

We were quite the pair, weren’t we? Me, hiding from myself, grasping at the first chance I got to be more than just a pretty girl, a good girl. You, hiding from the world. Hiding even when you were laying your soul bare to me.

I’m glad that now we are on equal footing. At least when it comes to showing our true self. I mean, I’m still not sure who my true self is. I do know that is not being Trig’s wife. And it’s not just being the proper pastor daughter either. I want more than that, and now I actually feel like I can achieve it.

I think, and forgive me if I’m too blunt although I think we are past that point, that you always knew who you were, you were only afraid of embracing it. In that sense, you are ahead of me. You are also not here, anymore. Already seeing the world. But I hope you haven’t forgotten about me yet, even if College is full of girls prettier and smarter than me.

I’m glad we cleared the air before you left. As hurt as I was at first. Confused. Angry because I felt so dumb. I can’t deny your friendship is one of the best things to happen to me. Paul’s too.

Most of my so-called friends dropped me the minute Trig and I broke up. Not that I’m complaining about it. It’s nice to not have to pretend all the time. Now Paul is no longer harboring a crush on me, he is actually pretty easy to talk to. He mostly talks about taco sausages, but it’s nice.

It feels real for a change.

Tell me about college. About the big bad world out there. About all the friends you’ve made and all the girls you’ve kissed. I’m only starting my application process to art school, but you can start preparing me for when I have to take the train out of here myself.

PS: I’m still figuring it out


	2. Kiss

Dear Ellie, 

You say college is the same old, same old. Plain and boring. I find that hard to believe. But maybe it is, from your point of view. Maybe you are the boring one, have you ever thought about that? You never were the life of the party back in Squahamish ;) (By the way that’s the letter version of an emoji. It’s a winky face, it means I’m joking). 

I think the only time you ever let yourself be the center of attention was that day at the church. I don’t blame you. Blending in it’s easier. I still find myself struggling to not go back to my old habits. Sometimes it’s easier to be no one and yearn to become more than it is to embrace your true self, to unleash the potential you believe you have, but fear you don’t. 

I finished my portfolio and will be dropping my applications to art school at the post office along with this letter. Then it will be official. I will have tried. The fear of failing it’s overwhelming. It’s not the first time my insecurities try to get the better of me, but I’ve found a powerful weapon against them. I’ve made it a point to remind myself that It’s always better to risk the bold stroke. 

So I will drop it. And then we wait. Waiting will be the hardest part. You will have to entertain me. I also have a book ready to read when I come back in case you insist on claiming there’s nothing to do in Iowa.

There had to be some interesting stories on the train ride, I’m sure of it. You just refuse to share it with me. Or were you so excited about the trip that you didn’t notice? It’s okay, you can tell me. I won’t share with anyone that you are a wussy, too busy crying on the train to notice anything else. All the people coming and going, strangers full of questions and possibilities. I’m sure you can at least make something up. 

I’ve gotten into poems lately. I found this old book my mother had from her high school years. She told me my dad gave it to her when they started dating. I don’t doubt my dad can be a romantic man, but it was still hard to imagine him as a teenager sharing love poems instead of preaching. 

It’s been a while since I read anything in Spanish, but some things hit harder and stronger when read in a language I sometimes struggle to recognize as my own, but that at the same time resonates within me with a strength nothing else can evoke. Or maybe, it’s just Gabriela Mistral who has that effect on me. 

I feel like a cliché, fascinated by her most popular poems. But maybe that’s what makes them popular, the way they can capture universal feelings and turn them into particular words we can’t find ourselves. Maybe, it’s because she wrote an ode to kisses and I’ve had one kiss ingrained in my mind for days.


	3. Road

Ellie,

Of course you would fixate on that part of the poem. Conceited much? It was fine. I’ve had worse. But I don’t know if I would say it was a kiss that fits the “There are kisses that cause delirium of hot and crazy loving passion,” description. Confidence looks good on you though, it always has.

And I appreciate you joking about it, I debated with myself a lot if I should bring the topic up. I didn’t know if it would make you uncomfortable, or jeopardize this newfound familiarity we have. I feel bad that the only thing I can offer you right now it’s my friendship, when you may want more. Look who is being conceited now.

I appreciate our conversations so much, you are still the only person I can be fully honest and share my inner thoughts with. I don’t know how you do it, but you always get me. I understand if you don’t want to use your precious time on someone that can’t even get herself to offer you a promise. Or that even if you do, you rather I don’t use it to process something that directly or indirectly involves you.

I will take your responses to my letters as permission for now, but you can always tell me if you need me to stop. There’s a lot of other things I’m happy to talk about. Like the fact, I went back to our wall this week. I couldn’t resist and let a little something for the butcher to paint over later. I did take a picture this time, so It’s not lost forever. I will text it to you later.

As much as drawing on paper or making a painting on a canvas excites me, nothing feels as thrilling as painting a wall somewhere. See, another thing you taught me. You are a bad influence. It feels different. No matter how much I draw, my works will always belong to me for as long as I decide not to share them. A wall in the middle of the street is public by its own nature, I’m choosing to expose myself no matter what I put on it. It doesn't matter that by the next day it will become a blank canvas again; reminding me that everything in life is ephemeral. Even me. Even us.

“There are problematic kisses that bring with them the key to a still unsolved mystery.” That’s the part of the poem that stuck with me. I can’t deny our kiss opened up the doors to a possibility I didn’t know existed, but that now I can’t get out of my mind. It’s problematic mostly because I’m still scared of what it would mean if I decide to cross the door. I feel like there’s no going back and so, I must wait. I remain stagnant looking at what lies beyond, the good and the bad, and I remain paralyzed. The mystery it’s not unsolved. I know I hold the answer in my hands, but I refuse to look.

Would you help me to keep opening my eyes to what lies beyond the life I’ve always known? I can do it without you, someday, eventually, but I want to do it besides you.


	4. Universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aster reflects about finally feeling more in control.

Ellie,

Paul took me to visit your dad this weekend. We sat with him in the booth for hours eating snacks, mostly Paul, talking about movies, mostly your dad, contemplating life, mostly me. We waited for the train and saw him operate the fancy automated signals. He showed us how it’s done. I have to admit I liked the way you used to do it more. 

The rush of the train passing so close to you. The power of holding the signals in your hands. Pushing a couple of buttons just doesn’t feel the same. I still remember how powerful I felt the day you let me signal the trains for the first time. I do still believe it’s just like controlling your own small corner of the universe. 

Since then I’ve realized I can not only control but fully create my own universe. That’s what each painting, each drawing, any form of art I make are. Snippets of reality, fragments of life, small universes where I control what get’s created, and even if they get destroyed. 

Back then, when I first accompanied you to the train station, I felt like my life was completely out of my control. I mean, it was. Everything on it depended on what my dad wanted for me. What Trig wanted. I didn’t know it then but even my relationship with you/Paul was out of my control. 

This is not a call out or blaming tactic. We are over that. But it’s the facts. I was the only one that didn’t know what was really happening. In a way being controlled by the words you sent me, being steered towards Paul because that’s what you and he decided to do. 

I feel more in control now. My decisions even if wrong, are for once only and truly my own. I’ve decided to reach out to you. I’ve decided to go to Art school. I’ve decided to forgive you and Paul, to have you in my life. I’ve decided to stand up to my dad more, even if every time it scares me to death, I still do it. Owning every one of my choices it’s invigorating. 

It’s a process still. I have to remind myself each and every time. But it gets easier the more I do it. The only thing left it’s for me to be bold. To choose to be bold. I’m getting there.


	5. Yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter. Finally Aster is ready to make a bold stroke.

Dear Ellie,

A little bird told me you are coming back to town for the Holidays. I can’t believe it’s already been months since you took a train and left us all behind. I wasn’t sure if you would make the trip. I wouldn’t blame you if Ioha was more attractive to you than the same old streets we have grown up walking. But I’m glad you are visiting.

I can only imagine how good it feels to know you aren’t stuck here. Even if you come back, you know for sure there are bigger things waiting for you a train ride away. It must be comforting. But you will be happy to know I’m not dying of jealousy and envy.

Usually I would, but I’ve already heard back from some of the schools I applied to. I’m starting to really believe that there’s something out there for me too. I have to confess it’s scary. To have it moving from a dream to possibility, to reality it’s nerve-wracking.

I want to leave Squahamish, I don’t think there’s anything I want more. As much as my life has changed in the last few months, it’s impossible to really break free from my own limitations while in this town. There’s too much baggage. Too many memories. Too many forces trying to undo the progress I’ve made.

I decided to keep my trend of reading the works of interesting Hispanic women. Lately I’ve been fascinated by the poems written by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. apparently she wrote a lot of them to a woman. A “friend”.

In her time, dedicating your life to God was one of the few ways women had to be independent, they could get away from having to marry a man and could dedicate their life to learning and studying. It’s not hard to see why she decided to become a nun. I probably would have done the same. Thankfully now I have more options. I only needed to be brave enough to take them. But I am now.

There has been something on my mind for a while now. And maybe it is a little cowardly of me to tell you in a letter. You will be here soon, and I should be able to tell you in person. But I can’t. I don’t think I will be able to get it out unless I do it right here, right now.

Besides, that gives us both the option of pretending nothing happened and ignoring each other if I end up being totally out of my deep here and misjudging our relationship.

I think I also should honor our tradition of using other people's words to tell each other important things. In this case I will allow myself to borrow from Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Only slightly adapting it for us.

Dear Ellie of mine  
And forgive me if I dare  
To say you are mine  
When I know that I still don't deserve  
To be called yours

Error is of the language,  
That what belongs to the owner,  
Sound like possessions in the servant.

My king, says the vassal;  
My jail, says the prisoner;  
And the humblest slave,  
Without offending him,  
Calls the owner his.

So when mine I call you,  
I do not intend to assure that you are mine  
but only that I want to be yours.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::  
Dear Aster,

I am yours.

Love,

Ellie


End file.
